Paul Arden | Sunday, 31 January 2021
It appears to be a never-ending pandemic at the moment. I don’t expect any international guests for six months at the very least, who knows? Maybe not all year. But fingers crossed it gets better and soon!
Fortunately rod sales so far this year have been fantastic! So thanks for that fellas! Lee is currently about to be snowed under, not in the way that Mika is of course, but in rod building!
Brexit has slowed down a blanks shipment and is a headache. But business is never plain sailing. With the double whammy of Brexit and COVID-19 there is certainly some choppy water to navigate.
Unfortunately not much in the way of fishing here at the moment, which is particularly frustrating since I planned to fish every damned day this year. But the lake is now officially closed since there was one Covid case on the houseboats. I haven’t heard the latest news on this particular “cluster” but I assume it’s still closed because there is no one else here!
I’m parked up at a friend’s resort fitting out the boat, Ironman training (for when exactly I don’t know), and keeping up to date with Sexyloops work.
Anyway, since I don’t think I’ll be guiding/hosting trips any time soon, and because a lot of people have suggested it to me in the last year (Ashly, Tim and others), I’ve been looking very closely at online casting coaching. It’s something I’ve been doing for over 20 years on ‘Loops and since no one can currently get to me in person, I think it might be an interesting option to offer via Zoom.
I’m working on the details at the moment. It’s going to be personal instruction 1-1. I will offer some structured classes but also I’m really looking to dial in on specific things that you want/need to learn.
I have a regular clientele of fishing visitors here, many of whom come in a large part to increase their casting skills. I train them online pre and post trips. I’m sure some of them will pick up on this offer. But I’m also sure it will be of interest to other readers too.
You’ll need some sort of tripod to hold your phone or preferably a table for your laptop/tablet. But these things are possible to do nowadays. I Zoom from the lake regularly and have no problems with coverage, at least in certain moorings!
What I’m looking at is a regular personalised program. Not a one off lesson, but instead a weekly or fortnightly training lesson with follow up communications during the week. I can also analyse video outside of Zoom sessions. There are a lot of different formats I can use. For example the casting video Masterclass section, the Sexyloops essential level challenge and of course the Sexyloops one day courses that I’ve been giving for the past 15 years or so. But what I plan to do is to write an individual program tailor-made to each participant’s requirements.
Time zones will be interesting and I might need to install a floodlight at the back of the Battleship!
I haven’t put a price on this yet. Obviously there will be one! I’m still ironing out a few details. Drop me an email if you are interested. I can teach all levels here, beginners, improvers, experts, instructors, even those of you interested in competition. I don’t teach double handed casting however but everything else I teach. I get results and you will see the improvements in your casting skills – this I’m happy to guarantee!
Slots will be limited. Too many people and it becomes less personal and I can’t give a good service if it’s too busy. Particularly since I’ll be devoting a lot of non-Zoom time to this as well.
This is actually tomorrow’s page. Tomorrow we will have something different!
Cheers,Paul